Photograph of Michael Strahan, coach Tom Coughin (holding the Vince Lombardi trophy) and quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning by Tien Mao Gothamist was amazed after the Giants won the Super Bowl, the city went wild, and it witnessed a ticker-tape parade.Barack Obama drew 20,000+ ahead of Seattle’s Saturday caucus.Londonist had Super Tuesday too.Elusive guerrilla street artist Banksy revisits Los Angeles.After the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and came this close to making......

As reported last week, Monday should see you going crazy to hear that one good song (are there others) by Peter Bjorn and John at the forum. More importantly make sure you get there in time to see support act Those Dancing Days. We caught them at Water Rats on Saturday and are pleased to report they combine cuteness and moodiness with alarming grace. The much loved Beirut play an instore at Rough Trade......

The National Archives show that back in 1967 there was a "grave security breach" when a diplomat, Mr Murray MacLehose, left the details of correspondence between Prime Minister Wilson and US President Johnson concerning the Vietnam war in a bank on Regent Street. It probably went a bit like this - Johnson - Are you sure you don't want to come and fight for the free world in Vietnam? Wilson: No, really, we're ok.......

Mayor raps Tory 'election plot'. Amuse yourself by misconstruing this BBC headline. DLR firm to operate Dubai Metro? And Hong Kong firm to operate London's rails. LoR production opening night. Says the Indy: Is it now the one show to rule them all? I wonder what the Elvish word is for "no". Image courtesy of red5standingby via the Londonist flickr group.......

No, this is not a Touch Up London entry involving a giant root vegetable or a cross-looking Stefan Edberg (whimper). The magnificent Swede in question is the rather stunning Götheborg, a full-scale replica of an 18th century merchant trading ship that this weekend popped to visit the capital and have a bit of a face-off with a modern-day warship. It's not entirely an accurate replica - the deck is 10cm higher as seamen are......

Black cabs in Hong Kong? Sex academy Amora opens. Not to be confused with West Ham striker of almost same name. Marathon claims the life of one participant. And the freesheets accuse each other of all kinds of dirty tricks. Image of marathon spectators courtesy of Orhan (again!) via the Londonist flickr group.......

A doctor has been struck off for over reacting at Heathrow: A doctor who boarded a plane in protective goggles, overalls, gloves and overshoes, alarming passengers over the Sars virus, has been struck off. The General Medical Council had found Dr Egidius Panis guilty of inappropriate conduct, and suspended his registration with immediate effect. The 49-year-old, of Barming, Kent, boarded the plane from Hong Kong to diagnose a man with a sneeze and cough.......

Virgin have compiled a chart of the Top 11 Underground Transit Systems Throughout the World and guess which creaking ancient network of tunnels comes out on top? Yep, we're number one! They do make it sound quite plush: Cushioned seats. LED time displays hanging from the ceiling in stations indicate the number of minutes you need to wait before the next train. Eclectic station artwork... Oyster cards allow you to touch against a subway......

Anyone walking past Holborn Tube is sure to have all kinds of leaflet thrust upon them. But if you were passing by last Friday, you might have ended up with something worthwhile. A group of postgrads from St Martin's have put together a handy map of zone 1 showing just how short the distances are between stations. The idea is to encourage more people to walk, rather than take public transport, and thus do......

Well, not quite. But this article we stumbled across recently makes (pickled) food for thought. It seems the gherkin may be the inspiration for a whole new style of architecture, with me-too versions springing up in Barcelona, Doha and Hong Kong. As the Independent quips: It now appears that, in giving birth to the Gherkin, London has fathered, or rather foster-fathered, a whole brood of pickled cucumbers that is set to colonise the world.......

A new report says that Muslims should 'play a greater role' in London's politics and the economy to help stem prejudice and discrimination. In the meantime, the City apparently needs to do more business with China and India. Looks like they might spray the Tube with anti-flu disinfectant. It works in Hong Kong by all accounts. A 'location aware' adventure game at the Tower of London you say? Where do we sign up? Dirty......

This week - Scorsese remakes Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs (The Departed) and conjoined twins become a punk band, (Brothers of the Head) First up, The Departed by director Martin Scorsese. If you're the kind of person who believes the proclaimations of a certain man salaried by the Guardian, Mr. Peter Bradshaw (and we are), it looks as if this might be the film to see this week. He has not a bad word......

Another great crime flick at Firecracker this evening, this time from Johnnie To and one night on the streets of Hong Kong with the Police Tactical Unit. This is a standout movie - the opening sequence is an instant classic as protagonists run into antagonists and seemingly insignificant extras step up and push the film where you least expect it. It's grim, it's funny and it's exciting - exactly the kind of flick you'd......

Even though we are way way past school age, we still get a little melancholy at the close of summer. Fortunately, our friends across the -ist network know that the shenanigans don't need to end just because the big yellow buses are back on the roads. So, grab your sunscreen and your favorite hangover cure, as we take a tour of end of summer fun from -ist cities all over the damn place. SFist......

You have to question the reasoning behind TfL's naming a form of electronic ticketing after a tasty sea-faring creature which is not only mistakenly employed as an aphrodisiac, but can also do amazing tricks with mucus secretions and dirt. Someone pointed out to Londonist recently that the whole idea behind Oyster was ripped-off from Hong Kong anyway, where they have been using Octopus cards since the mid-1990s. (Didn't London used to dictate what Hong......

We get to see a lot of high quality performing arts in London, just by going outside and hanging around. The National Theatre is hosting another Watch This Space Festival with lots of free outdoor performances to stumble across as you wander along the Thameside walk. The plucky performers who risk the unpredictability of British summertime weather range from steel pan musicians, "anarchic silent comedy from Japan", pyrotechnics, and... three women on three enormous......

Londonist gave a little whoop of delight this morning on hearing that the DIFA tower has been given the go-ahead by the Corporation of London. “Whoop! Whoop!” we were quoted as saying. You see, we find the helter-skelter proposal simply stunning. Sat alongside the Gherkin and, to a lesser extent, the yet-to-be-built Cheesegrater, the tower would crown a distinctive new skyline for the City. While it could never compete with the likes of Hong......

The Independent has a small preview of the East End Film Festival which starts tomorrow: The festival opens with Richard E Grant, director-in-residence, introducing his own directorial debut Wah-Wah - a family drama inspired by his experiences of growing up in the Sixties, starring Gabriel Byrne, Emily Watson and Julie Walters. Other highlights include the Palme d'Or-nominated Election, a Hong Kong Triad thriller starring Tony Leung; It's Nice up North, in which the comedian......

We picked up this book at lunchtime yesterday and finished it later the same evening, desperate to see how it resolved, but mostly curious as to what the deal was with the guy having sex with the otter. That kind of thing plays on our mind. It also plays on the mind of sixteen year old Felix who stumbles upon a statuette of this inter species sex act in a discount store he dubs......

You may have noticed London was looking a bit festive in an Oriental style over the weekend. The Chinese lunar Year of the Cockerel ended on Saturday and on Sunday the Year of the Dog was ushered in with simultaneous events in Chinatown, Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square. In previous years the event has been celebrated only in Chinatown itself with restrictions on the amount of firecrackers and fireworks that could be used, keeping......

So in today's papers we're given the first real details of just how evil the 'Hooked Cleric' Abu Hamza really is. For instance: The jury saw pictures of Hamza's home in Shepherd's Bush. It contained boxes piled with blank tapes and others labelled "master", suggesting they were being prepared for distribution. The tapes included sections on the evils of adultery, drink and e-number additives in food. And so the question of why you never......

We really should consider a weekly No Shit Sherlock column which this week would be won by the BBC's story that 79% of Londoners rate overcrowded trains as their biggest commuter gripe. So not the drunk drivers, bad armpit smells or hairy loons pleasuring themselves in public then? Oh well. We'd love to know how much Hong Kong's MTR Corporation paid YouGov for the information. Surely a couple of quid on a ticket into......

Good grief. The Duke of Edinburgh is to seal a time capsule filled with secret items at Greenwich's Royal Observatory. Now we have to worry about him insulting future generations when they open the bloody thing to find exactly what he shoved in there. We reckon the contents of the capsule will be something like this: A Polaroid showing the Duke making comedy gold 'slanty eyes' while visiting Hong Kong. One of Harry's old......

If there was such things as gastro-terrorists (you know, a crazed group of foody extremists hell bent on destroying the cabal of celebrity chefs that dominate the profession) then we think it's pretty safe to say that there would have been pretty tight security around Ristorante Fiore on St James's Street yesterday. Umberto Vezzoli's Itaian restaurant was the UK venue for the seventh annual Alba white truffle auction and everyone who's everyone in the......

- Heathrow's Terminal 2 is going to be demolished as part of the 2012 revamp. - Boeing's fuel-efficient jet landed at Heathrow at 1:13 p.m. yesterday after a 22 hour, 42 minute trip from Hong Kong that crossed two oceans and covered 11,664 nautical miles. Therefore breaking the world record for longest, nonstop flight by a commercial airliner. - On the tenth anniversary of his death, a stainless steel sculpture of a Nigerian bus decorated......

- The Austrailian press is reporting that the explosives seized in a raid in Sydney are the same as those used in the London bombings. It's called, believe it or not, Mother of Satan. - The budget for the Stansted airport renovation is £4 billion. A similar facelift at Luton is going to cost just £1.5bn. - Prince William started his work experience at HSBC's 'charity service division' in the City this week. - Boeing......

It's been a long time since we heard anything new about the redevelopment of Battersea Power Station, so it was quite a surprise to day to read they they're thinking of knocking the chimneys down. Now before you start panicking, it's not as bad as it seems, the plan is to kock the chimneys down...and then replace them with replicas. Why? Well, because the current stacks are irreparable: Hong Kong-based firm Parkview International ...wants......

As the country attempts to break the record for the greatest number of non sports fans ever to bunk off work to watch a test match, a bunch of scruffy oiks (a.k.a musicians) are attempting to break another record, that of the fastest album ever recorded. As of midday today a host of bands, wherever they are in the world, entered the studio to record a track (either a new track, reworking or a......

Although it was only this morning that we promised not to mention serial no shower, ladies man, and some time enemy of home security systems Pete Doherty it would seem as if his nefarious activities have started off something of a trend. South London singer, multi instrumentalist and acoustic electro pop whizz kid Patrick Wolf is currently on police bail to appear before the magistrates today, accused of breaking into his neighbour's house in......

Anyone who knows Londonist knows we like toys, and our favourite destination for a bit of toy shopping is undoubtedly Playlounge off Kingly Court. So imagine our excitement when we learned that Playlounge was organising an exhibition of the hideously collectible Qee toys. To mark the tenth anniversary of their company, Hong Kong-based toy manufacturers Toy2R are currently touring the world with a Qee Expo and it's due to land in London this week.......